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SAP takes on Microsoft in small-business market

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CIOL Bureau
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Siobhan Kennedy

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NEW YORK: The head of SAP AG on Wednesday unveiled plans for Europe's No. 1

software maker to take on Microsoft Corp. in the small-business market and urged

its co-founder, Bill Gates, to "tear down this wall" blocking

non-Microsoft technologies.

"I will ask Mr. Bill Gates to change his opinion about what is allowed

to be around Windows and what is not," SAP Co-chief executive Hasso

Plattner said during a speech in Orlando, which was monitored in New York over a

Webcast.

Plattner said technologies such as Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java had now

become a standard part of the software development process, but that Microsoft's

lack of support for Java was forcing users to make a difficult choice.

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"The Java Virtual Machine has become a mandatory component of our

software landscape and whether Microsoft and Bill Gates like Java is probably

not the question," Plattner said. "I want to say, like a famous

American once did, 'Mr. Gates, tear down this wall!'" Plattner said,

referring to a speech by US President Ronald Reagan in 1987 before the Berlin

wall had come down.

Plattner's remarks came as the German software giant introduced a new,

scaled-down version of its suite of business software targeted at the small- and

medium-business market -- companies with 1,000 employees and under. The

software, called SAP Business One, is aimed squarely at the same market

Microsoft is targeting with its recent acquisition of European software company

Navision in April, and its purchase of Great Plains Software in 2000.

The move is also part of SAP's drive to make its software systems -- long

criticized for being too complex and too expensive -- much easier for businesses

of all sizes to use.

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Asked how he thought SAP would hold up against Microsoft, Plattner said the

fact that Microsoft was forced to buy not one, but two, companies in the small-

and medium-business market showed that the software giant was having

difficulties getting its message across. He also pointed to the problems

Microsoft would likely have bringing two sets of technologies together.

"I would see difficulties to sit on four or five different

systems," Plattner said. "If they want to have compatibility it will

cost them a lot of time and money." Microsoft was not immediately available

to comment.

Plattner said the Business One software is designed as one system for small

businesses or regional offices to run everyday business tasks such as sales,

purchasing, accounting, invoices and so on. In addition, Plattner said the

software was designed to be compatible with SAP's full-blown set of business

applications, R/3, so regional offices and departments could easily sync

information with headquarters.

Analysts said the move to the small- and medium-business market made sense

for SAP. "I bet they cut six months off the launch time to make it clear to

Microsoft that they weren't going to allow Microsoft to leverage any its five

ERP systems into its installed base of customers," Bruce Richardson, an

analyst with AMR Research in Boston, referring to so-called enterprise resource

planning software, such as financial systems, which companies use to run their

businesses.

(C) Reuters Limited.

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